Microsoft has revealed a general release date for its upcoming operating system Vista - 5 December, 2006. Speaking to IT professionals, parliamentarians and senior law-enforcement officers at the Parliament and Internet conference in London on Thursday, Microsoft revealed its release plans. "We will officially launch Vista, Microsoft Office 2007 and Exchange 2007 on 5 December," said David Hipwell, a Windows client sales professional at Microsoft. On a very, very related note, the EC says that Vista will not be delayed due to regulatory issues. Also, the Shell: Revealed weblog has an item explaining why Aero Basic looks the way it looks. Update: ZDNet has removed the release date story, and since they are being rude by not offering an explanation, I have no idea what is going on.

Office XP has the nicest menus I've ever seen in any app. How I wish Microsoft would just implement that style system-wide. They made them suck in 2003, with light-orange on light-blue. What was that about!?